She liked sex and didn’t apologize for that. But she had no interest in random hookups or one-night stands with strangers. That meant getting to know a guy and she hadn’t made time for that in more than a year. The last relationship, if she could even call it that, ended with him leaving for the west coast and graduate school. Neither of them cared that his shipping out meant them ending, which said something about her ability to handle any sort of serious dating.
She hadn’t been heartsick when he left, but she had been lonely. She filled in nonwork time with friends, but truth was she worked a lot more these days. She buried herself in it. She made connections all day, traced this missing person to that John or Jane Doe photo. The detail-oriented work was both satisfying and infuriating. She could go for weeks without making any progress so that when she did, it spurred her to do even more, to push harder.
That amounted to a lot of late nights. Plus, not many guys wanted to hear a woman on the other side of the dating table talk about dead bodies, and the ones that did were not the type you wanted to date. Ever.
But little by little she discovered that the man in front of her did interest her. Not just in a what-makes-him-tick way. No, this went deeper. She truly wanted to dig around and get him. To figure out how that complex mind worked. “If it’s any consolation, I’m kind of used to the pain in the ass thing. It’s oddly endearing on you.”
He stood up and she was sure he was going to leave. She toyed with the idea of being sensible and letting him go. Abandoned that entirely and shifted, about to jump in front of him when he stopped.
He stripped off his jacket and folded it. Laid it across the arm of the chair. Then his long fingers went to his tie. He tugged on the knot and slipped it open. The slide of material against material filled the room as he peeled it off and dumped it on top of the jacket. Next came the shirt button. He undid the top two, until the tip of a white undershirt peeked out.
His eyebrow lifted as he looked down at her. “Better?”
Lordy. That sort of slow striptease should be illegal. Should but thank God it wasn’t. Her only regret was that it stopped. “Do you sleep in the suit?”
“Are you asking for personal reasons or are you taking a poll of some sort?”
“You make me want to scream.” His name . . . over and over. She dug her fingernails into the seat cushion next to her to keep from doing anything even remotely like that.
She’d never had need shoot through her like this. She’d had great sex before. A guy in college was into the up-against-a-wall hot-and-dirty type. She sure didn’t hate that. But Wren seduced in a much more subtle way. His presence wound around her until all she could think about was how it would feel to have his hands all over her.
“Interesting.” He sat down again, this time closer and angled so he faced her. “How was your visit with Tyler?”
The quick change in topic threw her for a second. She got whiplash as she struggled to keep up. “Random.”
“I’m not sure what that means in this context.”
“I didn’t know he was in town. I didn’t expect him . . .” She’d come to the go-for-it point in the conversation and decided to plunge ahead. “I didn’t want you to leave.”
She slipped her hand over his knee. Thought about telling him that she didn’t get why and she shouldn’t even like him, but she did. All those comments and arguments went through her mind. In and right back out again when he slid his hand over hers.
“Let’s talk about that last part.” He lifted their joined hands.
“It’s a mystery, to be honest.”
He kissed the back of her hand. “Maybe you find me charming.”
More so with each passing second. “Every now and then.”
“That seems about right.” He laughed against her skin.
The rich sound vibrated through her. “Thank you for coming to the rescue last night.”
She let her fingers brush over that scruffy chin she adored so much. Then he ran his free hand down the soft inside of her arm and an explosion went off in her head. The tingling reached every nerve ending.
His mouth followed his hand in a trail of nibbling kisses that extended to her elbow. “I get the sense you don’t need rescuing very often. In fact, you strike me as the rescuer rather than the rescuee.”
She wrapped her arm around his head and plunged her fingers into his hair. The strands slipped between her fingers. “Do you need to be rescued?”
“From the darkness you think plagues me?”
“That seems like a dramatic way of putting it, but is it a fair statement?” The air conditioner clicked on, but there was no other sound in the room. For a second she thought she heard a song, but realized the sound likely escaped from an open window from the floor below.
“I made the choice of this life long ago.”
She let her arm drop and sat back a little to get a better look at him. “So, you came out of the womb wearing a suit and barking orders.”
“Hardly.” The warm sound of his voice filled the room. “I was the soccer-playing, drinking-behind-the-school type in high school, but eventually grew up a bit.”
“Wait.” Her mind went blank for a second. Not a single thought bounced around in there until a rush of young Wren images ran through. “You’re saying you were a bad boy?”
“Very.”